


the hanging thought

by poalimal



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Les trois rois noirs, The Finite 'We', The Neutral 'Man'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 07:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14100489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: How can I be rid of you?





	the hanging thought

**Author's Note:**

> Unficcish. Less a drabble than... hm, a short play. Perhaps.

 

 

If my brother and I agree, we can remain in the same place. But if he and I can share no ground, then we can share no blood. So he becomes my enemy. Let him remain his own man, and I will become mine. And let him never forget that I will forever choose death over subjugation. Death over assimilation. These feet will never walk your paths - but neither will yours walk mine.

The answer is isolation.

 

* * *

 

No, the people are the answer - and isolation will keep you all apart. You think that isolation will stop at your beds? No, it will consume you. You will give nothing of yourself to your brother - you will brittle and break by yourself, you will be a man alone. Freedom from your own hands can never happen.

Everything we hold we are beholden to, because it is something we were given. This land, this wealth - this people. The people before us fought well so we would not have to. All in the hope of us, a future people who would know peace. We are that people, we know that peace because we know that it is in the people that we are strong. And they can never defeat a united people. We will allow no poison to touch the land, no outsiders to touch the gold - but the people above all must be protected. Blood can not be replanted, blood can not be rebuilt. Life is more precious than wealth; life is possible only through unity.

 

* * *

 

Life more precious than wealth? Spoken like a man who's never been poor.

I'll tell you right now, all that philosophy shit sounds real good - but it never saved nobody. But money? Yea, money talks. And blood talks, too. Like, if I ask you to free my brother, tied-up and bleeding, and you say no - well. Looks like we're at an impasse. _I_ see him dying. _You_ see him dying. But still you say no! Well, if all we have are words, then all we have is death.

See, you keep talking like the fight is over, when the war's just begun! And I'm ready.

Put it another way. I'm the one tied-up and dying. I don't have no brothers. _Your_ brother is the one killing me. And I say, stop him, save me! And you say-- well. But is it so bad? I guarantee you there won't be no quibbling once my hands is freed. Once I have _your_ whip in _my_ hand, you'll know what dying is. Suddenly you'll understand.

The time for asking is over. The question is freedom. The answer is violence.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, the many different you's in this. Anyway. Some mild allusions:
> 
> I. 'Growth from within. Ethical and cultural desegregation. It is a contradiction in terms to scream race pride and equality while at the same time spurning Negro teachers and self association.' 
> 
> II. 'Green for the land itself. Yellow for the gold that was stripped away. And red for the blood that was shed.'
> 
> III. 'When a bachelor of philosophy from the Antilles refuses to apply for certification as a teacher on the grounds of his colour I say that philosophy has never saved anyone. When someone else strives and strains to prove to me that black men are as intelligent as white men I say that intelligence has never saved anyone: and that is true, for, if philosophy and intelligence are invoked to proclaim the equality of men, they have also been employed to justify the extermination of men.'


End file.
